


The Dreaming King

by FactorialRabbits



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Child Death, Gen, Nightmares, as well as adult death, but what happened to elurin?, gil-galad is elured
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 21:24:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20712776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FactorialRabbits/pseuds/FactorialRabbits
Summary: Once upon a time, Gil-Galad had a twin. Late at night, sometimes he dreams he still does.





	The Dreaming King

**Author's Note:**

> A little piece spawned into existence at around midnight, with the assistance of the library.

Gil-Galad had a twin once, in ages long past. Back when he was young and small and innocent, a child playing in the caves with mother and father and his nurse. Sometimes, he still dreams of that twin, of nights sneaking away to play in the woods beyond the cave. Of the time they climbed too high, and his brother fell, tearing the flesh on his chest in a crooked line that never quite healed. A crooked line that, at the time, bled and bled and bled as he cried thinking his brother was dead.

Other nights, he dreams of other things. Still his twin, of course, but of screaming for his brother - for his other half - as their city burnt around them. They ran and ran and ran, only to be captured by men in red.

His nightmares are of what came after, of being abandoned in the bitter cold, of being taken by an elf with a sad smile and even sadder hands. His twin came too, to begin with. For a while all is well, and then the orcs come. One adult is not enough for a hoard; his twin is pulled from the horse, screaming until he falls deathly silent and blood pours to the ground.

When his twin's scream is cut short, the dream ends, and though he remembers the ride to Balar and the false name and family he was granted, he does not dream of anything that comes after.

Half of his heart was dead, after all.

When he sees half of his Herald's heart die, he cannot help but sympathise. He cannot tell the boy - the half elf, his nephew - why, but he does. He knows nothing will fill the hole, for nothing has ever filled his own, but still does what he can.

Its even stranger to see the Silvan king. He's familiar and yet not, though maybe that should be expected. Evidently he was a high noble among the Sindar, so as a child he may have seen him. A flicker always says it is something more, but the flicker is strange and they are so often wrong. Not only that but the other king seems to hate him, or maybe just they settle uncomfortably - maybe, being as he is, he can see through Gil-Galad's disguise and thinks him traitor.

And then other king is dying, and Gil-Galad cannot exactly leave him there. he goes to his side - irritation is not deserving of death - and does what he can to help. He pulls off armour as the king gasps for breath, watching with wide and desperate eyes. Seeing the wound, there is nothing he can do, and his hands become drenched in blood.   
And there... There on the king's chest is a crooked scar - and many other smaller ones - just as his brother once had. Ever since he fell from that tree. Ever since the first time he died.

Realising... Realising now, so late, when there's nothing to be done, it breaks his heart. He grabs his twin's hand, puts pressure on the wound and begs him to live. Uses his name, for the first time in an age, and hope and despair and dread-filled tears fill both their eyes.

The king opens his mouth to say something back, but the moment their eyes meet, he convulses. Goes limp. Is dead.

Gil-Galad screams again, his heart shattered again and again and again, and he cannot explain, cannot tell, cannot ask for help making sense of it. He just... Has to carry on.  
On and on, because for all his twin died, to the world... To the world it is just the other elvenking, someone he doesn't even really like. It has to be that way; everything would fall apart, otherwise.

* * *

  
Now in his dreams his twin dies three times, in sequence, all the same, every night after night after night after night after night after night. 

Elurín dies from falling, from orcs, from Sauron... And every time, all Eluréd can do is scream.

**Author's Note:**

> The answer to the question of what happened to Elurín is that he was rescued from the orcs and became Oropher. I... may or may not expand on this later. And others may or may not provide their own versions too ^^


End file.
